Adding plants to the listening room and why this is an
ecologically sound practice

Is there anything ecological about adding plants to a room
with a sound system? Aside from the fact that most plants are likely going to
be green in color, plants also contribute to a creating a greener and healthier
environment for people in the room. Now before you click away to another site,
let me just say that there is good evidence for this. Personally, I’m not a
believer in auras, telepathy, bending spoons with the mind, or the idea that a
power cable will dramatically change the sound of an amplifier. The fact is, if
I’m going to write about it, it better be verifiable and repeatable in a
controlled setting.

The color green

Aside from being symbolic of the green movement, the color
green has interesting properties on its own. Psychologist have shown that the
color green has a calming effect on people. It is used in public spaces where
this is important, is encouraged for the bedrooms of children with hyperactive
children, and is also used in therapies (ref. All About the Color Green).

More importantly, green is recognized by the eye as balanced
and centered. Because green is in the middle of the color spectrum, the green
wavelength hits the eye in a way that requires very little adjustment. As a
result, the mind recognizes green easily and interprets it to be centered and
balanced (ref. Wikipedia: Green). This could be helpful when audiophiles are trying to evaluate two different
pieces of equipment or different musical selections. Of course, for many people
and many types of music, actively listening also requires a peaceful and
balance setting.

Finally, green also symbolizes life & nature. At some
level, perhaps only subconsciously, adding green to a sound room is a tacit
acknowledgement that ecological issues matter. In rooms that are traditionally
dark and typically painted or decorated in color schemes ranging from beige to
pure black, adding a little green color suggests that there is more to this
room than just the ordinary hum-drum sameness of all the other sound and home
theater rooms seen in magazines and movies. I’ll even go out on a limb and
suggests that it can add a modicum of still-acceptable life-giving/nurturing
feminism to this otherwise dark and ominous place.

Plants help cool the room

Aside from the fact that the calming color serves to cool
the room psychologically, plants can actually cool the room that a sound system
is in. According to several recent research projects on the topic, such as the
one done at Washington State University, “Plants cool by a process called
transpiration, which, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, decreases
air temperature in offices by ten degrees” (see: Why Go Green?).
This is quite significant for sound rooms since the equipment there, everything
from home theater processors down to simple amplifiers typically raise the
temperature in the room. If we also consider that people in the room also raise
the temperature, plants almost become a necessity.

So did that work for me? I can’t really say. I’ve added
several plants to the room now and still have not been able to measure a
difference in temperature. Granted, I’m not doing extensive or carefully
controlled testing of this. I’ve merely placed a thermometer in the room and
have been keeping a record of the temperature, but I have not been able to
establish a reliable baseline to rely on yet. Perhaps as I continue to do this
will there be more data to draw on, but for now, my results have been
inconclusive.

Plants clean the air in the room

This is already well known, but for audiophiles there are
additional details to consider. Sound equipment has many parts made of synthetic
materials, plastics and glues that off-gas when they reach a certain
temperature. Some of these gasses can actually be toxic when equipment
overheats. While ordinary sound equipment does typically go through some
testing to ensure that toxic chemicals are not released under normal use, this
is also where products from countries where this testing is not as rigorous,
show their disadvantage. Can we really be certain that that beautiful
preamplifier manufactured and assembled in a sweat shop in some poor country by
overworked and abused workers is going to meet the higher standards of quality
control? Likewise, is that rock-bottom-priced tubed CD player really designed
to be listened to for hours on end in sunny Arizona all day? Can we really be
sure that it doesn’t emit just a trace amount of chemicals that over the
lifetime of the equipment could contribute to some illness?

Now plants aren’t going to prevent this process, but they
can help a little. As a matter of fact, plants are designed to do just that. It
is their function in the wild. NASA researchers found that some plants can
actually “remove many of the more than 300 chemicals found in the air of a
spacecraft” (ref: Manfred Kaiser).
Certainly adding a plant or two to the room can help clear the air just a
smidgen.

So does it work? Well, I can say that it has worked for me.
My TV room always had a distinct burned iron smell – it was very minor but
always noticeable. So I added two potted ficus trees and a large money plant to
the mantle of the fireplace in the room and after just a few days, the smell
was gone. Now I doubt the smell was toxic in any way, but it was certainly nice
to get rid of it. Not to belabor the point, but one could think of other
“smells” in that room that could probably be addressed with a strategically
placed plant or two…

Plants clean the dust in the room

Now for anyone who has stereo equipment of any type, this
should be reason number one to add plants. As we all know, hi fi equipment is
like a magnet to dust. If the equipment is black, which most hi fi is, then
this is easily seen after just a month or two of owning the equipment. Over my
lifetime I have probably wiped a whole suitcase full of dust off of my
equipment. Well, there is some good news here.

According to researchers at the University of Washington (same
group of folks referenced above), plants can remove as much as 20% of the dust
from a room (ref: Impact of Interior Plants).
Now 20% may not seem like a lot, but that equates to 1/5 less dust to wipe off
of equipment. If we also consider that most of that wiping just re-distributes
the dust into the air, and that vacuum cleaners also release dust back into the
air, then adding plants can certainly help. Speaking of vacuum cleaners, I use
one with a pretty good filter, but the fact is that even the best HEPA filters
will still blow the smaller particles back into the air of the room. This is OK
for plants, since they can more easily remove smaller particles than bigger
ones, so together, vacuuming and plants are likely to remove far more than just
20% of the dust in the room. Using air filters can help as well, although these
will require more energy to run as well and they typically are noisy and need
to be kept on a while to be effective.

So did my plants help remove the dust? Yes, I do believe so.
I now vacuum less often (and not just because I’m lazier, lol). While it’s hard
to prove this conclusively, it does seem to me that I need to vacuum the room
less often and I also dust less. I have several smooth piano black and glass
surfaces in the room and they seem to need less dusting now that the plants are
there.

Plants help diffuse sound

Now why is this important? Well, we’ve all clapped our hands
in an empty room and heard the echo. This is reflected sound and it arrives at
our ears just slightly later than direct sound. When listening to music or
speech, it makes the sound seem blurred and imprecise. Typically, most people
turn up the volume, but that doesn’t really solve the underlying issue. What is
needed is less reflective surfaces around the room. Audiophiles will typically hang
special sound-absorbing panels at reflection points around the room, and good
movie theaters use thick curtains for this, but these solutions can be expensive,
unsightly and cumbersome.

Another way to reduce reflections is to use large
small-leafed plants at those same reflection points and in corners of the room.
This is especially true for panel speakers like electrostatic panels since they
project sound from the whole surface of the panel against the side and rear
walls. A well-placed ficus behind each speaker, as this person has done: (see: Paco's Living Room System),
would certainly help tame those reflections.

Did it work for me? Yes, but I’m not certain if I like the
change as much as I would have hoped. The Ficus I have behind my Magnepans do
help diffuse the sound that is reflected onto the back wall and does improve
the sound, but I can’t quite say that I like the new sound any better than the
old. It now sounds crisper and more focused, but I kind of liked the softer
sound I had before adding the plants. Perhaps I just need to get used to the new
sound but I’m not sold on it yet. The difference is also minor in most cases.

So do plants help contribute to greening up one’s system?

Yes, a little. Combined, the benefits listed above do make a
compelling reason to adopt a few green plants in the audio/TV room. They
contribute color and life to the room, they help clean the air, and they help
tailor the sound to one’s liking by diffusing some of the reflected sounds in
the room. This in turn may also persuade someone who was about to purchase a
new set of speakers or “better” equipment to try adding plants to the room
instead. This in turn helps reduce electronic waste over the long term.